Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.

Old School Square, in the heart of trendy downtown Delray Beach, is a refurbished 1913 schoolhouse that is now an arts center. Amid the Crest Theater, the Vintage Gymnasium, and the Entertainment Pavilion sits the underrated Cornell Museum of Art and History. The small-yet-hearty museum is currently offering two worthwhile exhibitions through January 15. The Heart Behind the Hands: 100 Years of American Folk Life features more than 100 handcrafted items from 1850 to 1950, including quilts, toys, furniture, ironwork, pottery, and paintings. These items offer a fascinating glimpse into American history and the simple but skillfully produced art of this era. The ironworks and pottery in particular exemplify a time when craft came first, with painstakingly slow production processes that resulted in exquisite details and flawless construction. The exhibition also includes an intriguing little collection of artifacts and traditional Southern art titled "Living Traditions: Folk Artists of the American South." Linda Gunn's "Celebration of Illustration" is a 22-piece exhibition that highlights the artist's illustrations for the books Florian's Special Gift, A Cedar Valley Christmas, and Flippy of Kensington. Gunn's work exudes a kind of naiveté and innocence that is apparent in the animal characters and the skewed perspectives. Her light-handed use of watercolor and ink gives the illustrations a dreamlike quality that allows the reader's imagination to wander and flow. Gunn's whimsical works might be a bit amateurish, but her heart and intentions are in the right place (books like Florian's Special Gift were written for charity to help children deal with the loss of loved ones). (Through January 15 at the Cornell Museum of Art and History, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach. Call 561-243-7922.)

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The mummy of Tutankhamun, discovered in 1922 in a burial chamber near Luxor, Egypt, remains in its home country, as does Tut's elaborate gold-plated sarcophagus. But 50 burial objects are now on display at the Museum of Art in "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," as well as 70 objects from other tombs and a nifty video reproduction of the grimacing mummy, revealing itself on a flat, bed-like screen with an accompaniment of spine-tingling movie music. The exhibition is shamelessly overpriced (top tickets are $30) and, let's face it, a little on the skimpy side (there are more than 5,000 artifacts from Tut's tomb, meaning we get a measly 1 percent for our money). But you can't argue with the show's artistic merit. The anonymous Egyptian sculptors and goldsmiths who created the objects to facilitate the young pharaoh's passage to the Other Side were great artists. Here, for example, is a striking, 18-inch, gilded, wood statuette of Horus the Elder, with a long, tight-fitting tunic, folded arms, straight Cleopatra tresses, and the face of a falcon. Horus, according to a book written to accompany the show by Egypt's antiquities czar, Dr. Zahi Hawass, is "a sky god linked with the ascension of the king to the stars." The statuette's creator has given him a short, predatory beak, sharply focused eyes, and a remarkable spark of life. There are the carved heads of cow goddesses, one of them leaving the graceful wood grain exposed, like fur markings. Lanky panthers are caught midstride. There's a winged sphinx, carved on a gilded ceremonial shield, dispassionately trampling Nubian warriors underfoot, and a carved wood serpent goddess, its wings stretched protectively forward. And there are dozens of images of Tut himself in various incarnations, doe-eyed, visionary, emanating a vast calm. You begin to understand the excitement of the archaeologists who broke into Tut's tomb 83 years ago. (Through April 23 at the Museum of Art, 1 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale. Call 954-525-5500)

The notorious Whistler's Mother is not among the dozen oil paintings included in "James McNeill Whistler: Selected Works from the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland," at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. It now belongs to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and it's rarely seen in the artist's native country. And maybe that's a good thing, because without the glaring spotlight of its fame to distract us, we're left to look at Whistler's work in an altogether different light. This exhibition draws on one of the world's most extensive Whistler collections and features items culled from a 40-year period. Along with those 12 oils are dozens of drawings, etchings, and lithographs, a few watercolors, and a smattering of such personal memorabilia as letters, manuscripts, and books. Aside from a couple of the oils, however, we don't get much sense of Whistler's achievement as a painter. That's a shame, because since his death in 1903, he has largely fallen out of favor, overshadowed by, for instance, impressionism, which he arguably anticipated. There's even a pale, ineffable trace of Vermeer's Street in Delft in the 1897 small oil panel The Priest's Lodging, Dieppe. But the portraits here, including a self-portrait circa 1896 and some obscure nudes, aren't of much interest. The show does include one of the series of Nocturnes painted in the mid-1870s, inspired by a favorite subject: London's Thames River at nightfall or in the evening. There's almost no attempt at realism and instead an emphasis on mood, although the artist never gives in to abstraction completely. In A Distant Dome, which he painted during a trip to Corsica near the end of his life, he comes close to suggesting the substance of a real landscape rather than just its feel. Despite Whistler's undeniable technical mastery, his overall cultural contribution seems to have been eclipsed, ultimately, by his flamboyant life and personality. This uneven exhibition from the Hunterian Gallery seeks to reclaim the artist's rightful position in art history and to restore some perspective to his reputation. It's a valiant effort, even if it's only partially successful. His mother, of course, would probably disagree. (Through April 2, at Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Mizner Park, Boca Raton. Call 561-392-2500.)